GVU's 5th WWW User Survey

This is the main page for the
Graphic, Visualization, & Usability Center's
(GVU) 5th WWW User Survey. GVU runs the Surveys as PUBLIC SERVICE and as such,
ALL RESULTS ARE FREE (subject to certain terms and conditions).
The 5th Survey was run from April 10, 1996 through May 10, 1996 and was endorsed by
the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
(which exists to develop common standards for the evolution of the Web) , NCSA's Software Development
Group (SDG) (the folks who develop Mosaic and
other Web technologies), and INRIA
(the acting European host for the W3C in collaboration with CERN, where the Web originated).
Over 11,700 unique responses were collected to eight sets of questionnaires,
including:

Presentation of all the results is an arduous task (please forgive any
typos and spelling errors. Not only is the process time-consuming, but finding
a meaningful way for users to find the results of interest is not easy either.
Toward this end, we've created
over 200 graphs (See: graphs and tables) of the results
and added our interpretation to each question asked in the Survey. These
interpretations are also available in a separate, non-graphical format
(See: bulleted lists of the findings). These bulleted lists
provide an easy way for users to scan the results non-graphically first,
and then inspect the graphs for only those questions of interest. There are
a lot of interesting results. Plus, PDF files of the entire
set of HTML pages presented herein are also available.

For all questions, analysis between the following groups were performed:
European vs US users, Female vs Male users, and by age (19-25, 26-50, 51+).
These comparisons provider deeper insight into the characteristics of
these user segments.

For those wishing a more in-depth, market savy report on
Internet demographics (Colleen and I only have so much free time), we highly recommend the
FIND/SVP Emerging Technology Research Group's
The Emerging Internet Market Report
(or contact: Marcia Chin of FIND/SVP @ 800-346-3787).
FIND/SVP has been monitoring the evolution of Internet users since early 1994, and as such, is
able to present unique trend analysis and insights. The report also provides a much needed
comparison of the methodology and results of other major surveys. Through a
licensing agreement with the GVU Center at Georgia Tech, FIND/SVP utilizes data gathered from
GVU's WWW surveys and compares those to findings of its own survey instruments in an effort to provide
a more accurate picture of the Internet user population and how that population has evolved over time.

The average age of all the Web users that responded to the Fifth
Survey is 33.0 years old, a slight increase from the Fourth Survey,
which had an average age of 32.7 years old.One of the re-occurring
differences between European and US users is age profiles, with the
European users (average age 28.8) being younger than their US
counterparts (average age 33.9). These averages are almost the same as
observed in the Fourth Survey (European 29.7; US 33.2). As with the
Fourth Survey, there are few major differences between the age
profiles for men and women. The average age for women is 31.9 years
old, which is slightly younger than the men, which have an average age
of 33.4 years old. These numbers are almost identical to the Fourth
survey where the average ages were 31.8 years old for women and 33.1 years
old for men.A trend observed in the Fourth Survey that continues in
the Fifth Survey is for the women to have a stronger presence within
the 11-20 year old range, with 12.9% of the women belonging to the
16-20 year old category compared to 10.1% of the men. The stronger
presence of younger women is supported by the occupational data which
also shows a strong presence of women college students.

What's the gender ratio & how has this changed over time?

Overall, 31.5% of the users are female and the other 68.5% are
male. This represents a moderate increase in female users from the
Fourth Survey, where 29.3% reported being female, and quite a
significant jump from the Third Survey (April 1995), where 15.5%
reported being female.The US segment continues to be integrating more
female users into its user base than other countries, with 34.4% of
the users being female in the US (65.6% male). Europe reports only
15.2% females. However, this is a 45% increase from the the Fourth
Survey, where 10.5% of the European users were female.Compared to
random sampling surveys, like O'Rielly, FIND/SVP, and Nielsen, the
gender ratios for the Fifth survey are all with the reported margin of
error, i.e., no statistical differences.

What's the average and median income?

The estimated average household income for the Fifth Survey is $59,000
US dollars. As with the Third and Fourth Surveys, this questions
received the most 'Rather not Say!' responses (14.0%), nearly seven
times greater than any other question. The average income for the
Fifth Survey is slightly lower than the Fourth Survey ($63,000) and
much lower than the Third Survey ($69,000). We do note that for the
Fifth Survey, we changed the ranges provided to the users of values to
more accurately reflect normal income levels. As with previous
surveys, the European users have more users in the lower income
brackets (23.0% under $20k) and fewer above $50k (31.3%). This trend
is due to the strong presence of students in the European Web user
community. As one would expect is directly proportional to age, with
the 19-25 year old age group reports having less income than the older
age groups (29.4% under $20k). For the 26-50 year old age group, 48.4%
report a household income above $50k, with 61.5% over $50k for the
over 50 year old age group.

What about location, marital status, & occupations?

For classification of location by major geographical location, 73.4%
of the respondents were from the US, 10.8% from Europe and 8.4% from
Canada & Mexico. Compared to the Third Survey which was run one year
ago (80.6% from the US, 9.8% from Europe, and 5.8% from Canada &
Mexico), this represents a significant shift towards less of a US
dominance in Web users. Additionally, notable increases occurred in
most of the other geographical areas like Asia, Africa, Oceania, the
Middle East, and Central & South America. Responses were received from
all the continents. The vast majority of older users are located in
the US (83.4%), more so than the other age groups (74.9% 26-50 year old
and 67.1% 19-25 year old). Besides the US, the largest concentration of
younger users (19-25 year old) is in Europe (16.6%).

One of the more stable characteristics of Web users over the survey is
marital status. Overall, 41.1% of the users are married, with 40.8%
being single. The users whom reported living with another was 9.6% and
those reporting begin divorced was 5.1%. Europeans were twice as
likely to report living with another person (18.4%) compared to the US
(8.0%). These percentages are almost exactly the same as in the Fourth
Survey. As with the Third and Fourth Survey, women Web users are less
likely to be married than men (38.2% verses 42.5%) and more likely to
be divorced (7.0% verses (4.2%) or living with another person (10.8%
verses 9.1%). As one would expect, three quarters of the 19-25 yr olds
are single, with three quarters of the 50+ yr olds being married. The
26-50 yr olds are more likely to be married than single (54.0% vs
25.6%).

As with the Fourth Survey, Educational occupations account for 29.6%
of the Web users, with Computer related occupations a close
second at 27.8%. This is significant shift from the Third Survey
a year ago where Computer related occupations accounted for
31.4% of the users and Educational occupations accounted for
23.7%. Thus, there appears to be a solid migration of
non-computer science users, with a strong inflow from the
educational sector. Professional and management occupations
account for 18.9% and 10.7% respectively.Female users tend to be
primarily involved in Educational occupations (35.5%), with
Professional (19.8%) and Computer related (18.2%) occupations
following. This is quite a different occupational profile than
males, and is supported by the educational attainment and age
profiles of females. Male users are slightly more likely to be
in Computer related (32.2%) occupations than Educational
(26.8%), with Professional (18.5%) and Management (11.5%)
following.

How willing are users to pay for access to Web sites?

This question has changed since the last survey, so a strict
comparison of answers is probably not fair. In previous surveys,
we asked if respondents willingness to pay depended on the cost
and/or quality of the information provided. This time, we
presented several different payment schemes to find out what
schemes users preferred. With each survey, the percentage of
respondents who have stated outright that they would not pay for
access to WWW pages has been increasing. For the fifth survey,
65% said that they would not pay. This may reflect the fact that
most people primarily use the Web as a source of entertainment
and not necessarily a resource they are willing to pay
for. Another reason might be the fact that so many users are now
paying Internet service providers for Web access. They may not
be willing to pay twice: once for access to the Web in general
and again for specific Web pages. For respondents who would
agree to pay fees for Web pages, the most popular models were a
subscription model (12.1%) and pay-per-view (10.9%). For those
willing to pay, the subscription model was favored by the
youngest users (13.0%), while older users preferred a
pay-per-view model (13.7%).

Politics

This was a new questionnaire for the Fifth survey which investigated the political profile of Web users
as well as their online political activities.

What is the political profile of Web users?

Overall, the largest category of respondents considered themselves
moderate in their political views (30.1%). 21.1% considered
themselves to be conservative or very conservative, while 35.18%
were liberal or very liberal. For US respondents, the curve
peaked at moderate (32.5%) with 4.4% in the conservative extreme
and 8.9% in the liberal extreme. In Europe, however, the curve
peaked at liberal (33.6%) with only 0.7% in the conservative
extreme, but 17.1% in the liberal extreme. One thing to consider
with these numbers, though, is that the terms "liberal" and
"conservative" may have slightly different meanings in different
cultures, so a strict comparison between the US and Europe may
not be appropriate.More females than males reported being
liberal or very liberal (40.6% female, 32.7% male). About the
same number, however, reported being moderate.

For respondents in the US, we asked what party they identified most
strongly with. The largest category was "democrat" with 25.4%
closely followed by "republican" with 21.1%. The next two largest
categories were "independent, leaning toward democrat" with
16.4% and "independent, leaning toward republican" with
10.3%. Only 7.4% of respondents classified themselves as strict
independents. 5.8% classified themselves as libertarians. It is
interesting to note that although most people identify with one
of the major parties, most also classify themselves as
"moderates".Respondents over age 50, in general, identify more
strongly with their party of choice than do other age groups;
42.9% classified themselves as clearly democrat or republican.

What are their voting behaviors?

An extremely high percentage of respondents are currently registered
to vote (91.9%). This is not surprising given the high levels of
education and income also reported by survey respondents.
Approximately 60% of all respondents report having participated
in the most recent local, legislative, and national
elections. In the US, the highest participation rate is in
national elections (72.5%) while in Europe, the highest rate is
in local elections (59.1%). Across all voting categories, the
participation rate increased dramatically with age. The age
19-25 respondents averaged 45.8% participation, 26-50 averaged
69.6%, and over 50 averaged 81.6%.

What other political activities do people engage in?

Overall, 40.3% of respondents reported that they are more involved
with political issues since coming online. 48.36% reported being
equally involved. Over 52.2% of respondents report engaging in
some "other" online political activity that does not fall
into any of the given categories. For the categories given, the
most popular online activities were: writing a government
official (31.0%), discussing political issues (23.3%), and
signing petitions (22.1%). The majority of respondents have
never sent email to their highest government official
(73.1%). 17.7% have sent 1 or 2 email messages. Only 2.5%
reported that they cannot send email to their highest
official.The percentage of respondents aged 19-25 who take part
in online petitions is more than double the percentage of those
over age 50 (30.4% and 13.6% respectively).

The most popular offline political activities were: discussing
political issues ("debate",68.4%), signing a petition (46.8%),
and writing/calling government officials (34.9%). The least
popular were: joining a political group (9.9%), volunteering for
a party/candidate (10.93%), and attending a rally (17.1%).More
than half of respondents over 50 have written or called a
government official in the last year (52.6%) compared to 22.4%
of those aged 19-25. More than a quarter (27.2%) have
contributed or solicited money compared to only 16.9% of those
aged 26-50 and 6.9% of those aged 19-25.

Data Privacy

We predict that issues of data privacy will become increasingly important as
the Internet becomes a part of many people's daily lives. This new questionnaire
provides the first insights into users' knowledge of and concerns about
data privacy issues.

Do users know what information can be automatically recorded during a Web transaction?

Most users are aware the the time of the request (85.1%) as well as
the name of the requested page (82.7%) are loggable. Following
in order of response rates, the name of the user's machine
(71.0%), the name of the user's browser (59.0%), the user's
email address (45.2%), the user's operating system name (37.9%),
a site id the persists across sessions (aka cookies) (37.7%),
and finally the user's physical location (31.7%). 14.7% reported
not knowing what information is loggable. This question reveals
that while the majority of users understand the basic
information that can be recorded per transaction, many do not
know some of the advanced features like cookies. Additionally,
the current HTTP specifications do not enable the user's email
address to be logged, thus indicating that 45.2% of the users
hold a false belief about what is loggable. Yet, given the
recent implementation bugs (enabled the user's email address to
be sent to whomever) of certain browsers that implement
scriptable languages like Javascript, this results may be a bit
ambiguous.

What are some of their opinions on various data privacy issues?

For this question, users were asked to rate their level of agreement
with various statements about data privacy issues. There were 5
choices, ranging from Agree Strongly (5) to Disagree Strongly
(1).The statement that respondents agreed most strongly with
(4.6/5.0) was: "I value being able to visit sites on the
Internet in an anonymous manner." A close second at 4.4 was: "A
user ought to have complete control over which sites get what
demographic information." The desire to control their own
information is also seen in the conditions under which users are
willing to reveal that information.Continuing to emphasize the
importance of control, many respondents agreed that they "ought
to be able to take on different aliases/roles at different times
on the Internet" (3.7). But they strongly disagreed with the
idea that "content providers have the right to resell
information about its users to other companies" (1.7).Most
users, however, recognize that Web site designers have a
legitimate need to collect demographic information in order to
better design their Web sites (3.8) and to market their sites to
advertisers (3.8). Most also recognize a role for
advertising-supported content (4.0).

What are the conditions under which users are willing to reveal their
demographic information?

The condition that most respondents agreed to was "if a statement was
provided regarding how the information would be used" ("use",
78.5%). The other statement that more than half of the users
agreed with was "if a statement was provided regarding what
information was being collected" ("notice", 59.1%). This second
statement refers mainly to information that can be collected
automatically during a Web transaction, such as browser type and
machine name. Other conditions that respondents were somewhat
less agreeable to were: "for some value added service
(e.g. notification of events)" ("value", 44.4%) and "in exchange
for access to the pages on the Web site" ("exchange",
46.7%). Interestingly, this suggests that respondents are more
concerned with their right to control demographic information,
than any compensation they might receive for revealing it.Only
5.9% reported that they would not give a site demographic
information under any condition.

WWW Usage & Preferences

Where do people access the Web from?

This was a new question for this survey. Respondents were asked to
indicate the primary place from which they access the WWW. Only
one answer could be selected. "Distributed" means that they do
not have a primary place--their access is distributed.More than
half of the respondents said their primary place of access was
at home (55.4%). This number corresponds well with similar
questions, such as Who Pays for Your Access where over half of
respondents indicate that they pay for their own access.More
European users than US users consider work to be their primary
place of access (46.3% vs. 32.2%).More than 73% of those over 50
reported that their primary place of access is at home.

How often do people use their Web browser?

For this question, we mean how many time you use the Web for a
specific set of tasks or activities. We do not mean how many
times the browser is launched per day. 43.6% of respondents use
the Web 1 to 4 times a day. 37.9% use it more frequently, and
18.5% use it less frequently. compared to the fourth survey,
this indicates a slight rise in the percentage of respondents
using the Web on a daily basis. Fewer females use their browsers
on a daily basis: 72.2% of females compared to 86.6% of
males. Both of these percentages, however, are higher than in
the fourth survey. These numbers are very good news for Web
sites that provide content that changes daily.

Why do people use their Web browsers?

These responses are almost identical to the responses for the fourth
survey. The most common Web activity is simply browsing (78.7%)
followed by entertainment (64.5%) and work (50.9%). The only
notable change is in shopping which went from 11.1% in the
fourth survey to 14.2% in the fifth. The 26-50 age group
reported significantly more work (59.6%) and business research
(47.1%) being done on the Web than other age groups. Those aged
19-25 report more entertainment uses (76.5%) and academic
research (48.8%).

What are the main problems with using the Web?

For this question, users were asked which of the following problems
they encountered when using the Web: not being able to find a
page I know is out there ("find info"), not being able to
determine where I am ("lost in htext"), not being able to
organize well the pages & information I gather ("organize"), not
being able to find a page I once visited ("return"), it takes
too long to view/download pages ("speed"), not being able to
visualize where I have been and where I can go ("visualize"),
and it costs too much ("cost"). Users were allowed to mark more
than one answer. As was found in the fourth survey, the most
common problems are: speed (80.9%), organizing retrieved
information (33.6%), and finding information (32.4%). Speed is
even more of a problem than in the last survey (69.1% fourth),
even though respondents are reporting higher modem speeds. The
least reported problems are: getting lost in hypertext (5.4%)
and the cost (9.2%).

How often do people use the Web instead of watching TV?>

This question was refined from the fourth survey to allow us to get
more detailed information about the relationship between Web use
and TV watching.

Almost 36% of respondents claim that they
use the Web instead of watching TV on a daily basis. An
additional 28.9% say the Web replaces TV on a weekly basis,
usually more than once a week. Older users are more inclined to
use the Web instead of watching TV. For those over 50, 74.3%
report using it at least several times a week compared to 60.0%
of those aged 26-50 and 57.4% of those aged 19-25.

How fast are people's connection to the Internet?

The most common connection speed is 28.8 Kb/sec (39.0%) followed by
14.4 Kb/sec (25.5%). This is the reverse of the fourth survey,
where 14.4 Kb/sec connections were the most common.The number of
respondents connecting at speeds less than or equal to 28.8
Kb/sec has grown slightly since the fourth survey from 61% to
65.5%. So while respondents have faster modems than in previous
surveys, more respondents are using modems than in previous
surveys.European respondents, in general, have faster connection
speeds. A higher percentage of respondents over age 50 are
connecting with speeds under 28.8 Kb/sec (87.5%).

Web Authors and Java

This is a new section for the Fifth survey that asks Web authors about their uses
and perceptions of Java, a programming language developed at Sun Microsystems which
can be used to add interactivity to Web pages.

Have you used Java and do you plan to use it in the future?

Only 17.3% of respondents who identify themselves as Web authors have
programmed in Java. But, more than half of Web authors plan to use
Java in the next year (58.1%). Just over a quarter are not sure
(26.4%).

What are the major advantages of Java?

This question asked Web authors what they thought the major advantages
of Java were. Respondents could choose more than one answer.
The most cited advantage was Java's platform independence which
was noted by 46.7% of respondents. The next largest category was
"Other/Do not Know" with 42.64%. About a quarter of respondents
identified the fact that Java doesn't require special
permissions (unlike CGI programming) (24.9%) and better
interactivity (23.5%) as major advantages. Only 11.5% of users
cited built-in security measures as an advantage of Java
programming.

What are authors' perceptions and knowledge of Java's security?

For this question, authors were asked to rate their knowledge of Java's security measures as:
"None at all", "A little (e.g. could list some of them)", "Moderate (e.g. have read the white paper)",
"A lot (e.g. have a thorough understanding of flaws recently found)", or "Expert (e.g. have written code to test
them) ". Of those who knew something about Java's security, more than half of the respondents reported that they
know "a little" (53.9%). 45.0% reported knowing a "moderate" amount or "a lot". Only 1.0% considered themselves
experts.

The largest category of authors see Java as somewhat secure (46.9%). An equal amount think that
Java is very insecure or somewhat insecure. It would be an interesting analysis to see how level of
expertise was related to perceptions of security.

What is the real value of Java to the Web?

More than half of the authors responding see Java's value as mainly functional (54.9%).
Almost 30% feel it is mainly aesthetic or adds no value at all. The remaining 15% think it represents
a revolution that will fundamentally change the Web.

We owe the loan of the fabulous artwork to
Melissa House
& Allyana Ziolko (please contact Allyana: allyana@cc.gatech.edu
for permission to use the artwork) and technical support to Michael Mealling (OIT),
Dan Forsyth (CoC), Dave Leonard (CoC), Randy Carpenter (GVU), & Kipp Jones (CoC). Of course,
the resources necessary for the Surveys would not be possible without support from the
GVU administrative staff and Dr. James Foley, GVU's Director.

Special thanks go to Greg Calhoun, Emil Sarpa, & John Dutra of
Sun Microsystems, whose generously
provided the machines which ran the Surveys.
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